Customer Background
Our customer is a leading US-based manufacturer of water heating, water treatment, and boiler solutions for commercial and residential applications. Enjoying a stellar reputation for 140+ years, the organisation’s global workforce innovates every day to deliver customer centric solutions through their comprehensive product line.
Customer Need
The customer had developed a wide range of smart water heaters to which they needed to add innovative 21st-century capabilities, greater market synergies, enhanced control, and a seamless end-user experience. They partnered with Softdel to develop a next-gen touchscreen-based user interface module that could be utilised across their family of water heaters and thereby, would give them a strong competitive advantage.
Softdel’s Solution
- Softdel developed an intuitive touch screen display (4.3 x 7-inch LCD with an LED backlight) and a capacitive touch panel. The design team had worked closely with customer team to capture market feedback and customer needs and integrate them into the prototypes.
- Softdel’s solution assisted in automated test execution, log file creation, and test report management.
- A cloud-based web application was built for monitoring critical water heater parameters, including temperature and energy consumption.
- Softdel integrated and ported Modbus stack to the control module to enable inter-device communication over Modbus and client proprietary protocols
- Additionally, Softdel supported the cloud-based interface with features like remote monitoring and control, performance tracking, alarm generation, and inventory optimisation.
Standards and Technology
Embedded C | Freescale KINETIS design studio Freescale Embedded GUI Converter
Connectivity protocols: Modbus, Client proprietary | Client proprietary water heater simulator | Defect tracking (axosoft)
Benefits
- Innovative control features: The touchscreen features are designed for simplicity and versatility and can manage a wide range of water heater solutions with ease.
- Faster time to market: The solution is designed to optimise efficiency and minimise operating costs, working remotely to maintain a higher degree of operational control.
- Increased safety: The customer's water heaters now work more securely with reduced system shutdowns – Softdel’s solution offers updated methods of temperature management, enhanced performance management, and transformative Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities.
